


In a name

by Aethelar



Category: Teen Wolf (TV), The Maze Runner (Movies)
Genre: (temporarily) non consensual pack bonds, (who are best bros of course they are), Amnesia, Dryad Alby, Everyone in the maze is a were, Human Alpha Stiles Stilinski, Human Alpha Thomas, M/M, Magic 'n shit, Morally dubious Stiles and Lydia, Pack Dynamics, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Thomas is Stiles, Werejaguar Minho, Werewolf Chuck, Werewolf Gally, werecoyote newt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-05-31 06:51:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15114071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelar/pseuds/Aethelar
Summary: They take your memories and the only thing they leave is your name, but his name is an incomprehensible mess of consonants. So he chooses a new one.





	1. Chapter 1

i.

They take everything from you. Every memory, every dream. Every scrap of your identity. The only thing they leave you is your name.

Because a name is so special. Because a name defines you, makes you who you are. Because names are the fucking be all and end all of everything you fucking need and what’s in a fucking name, a rose by any other name would smell of the same stinking shit as anything else ever would --

“Thomas,” he chokes out, spits the words around sand and mud. He staggers to his feet, and the crowd around him have gone silent, waiting for him to finish that statement. He swallows against the brittle lie, and indulges them: “My name is Thomas.”

They cheer. They chant. At some point, Newt shortens the name to Tommy, and claps him over the shoulder like he’s proud.

Thomas grins back. Buries the collection of unpronounceable letters that had swum up from the murky remains of his memory. _Thomas_ , he hammers into his mind, and he tells himself it shouldn’t matter.

Except that, on some level, it does. Because they only leave you your name, but Thomas’ name - his real name - wasn’t worth having.

Well. Screw them, and screw their little dog too. Thomas forces the strained grin into reality and feels it relax, feels it become natural. He laughs and it sounds genuine, takes a swig of the watered down jet fuel that Gally brews and almost manages to swallow before he chokes. In the firelight and the noise, he forgets that Thomas was a random name he picked out of thin air, forgets the collection of unpronounceable consonants that formed his real name. They’re meaningless.

Thomas drinks again and laughs again and spins in circles just to feel dizzy, and he’d rather be a Thomas any day.

ii.

Chuck runs through the who’s who of the glade, as much as he knows.

“Most of us are weres, I think - or shifters? There’s definitely a couple of shifters. Like, at least three. But, um, I don’t actually know the difference between a were and a shifter, so you should ask Jeff about that, because he knows everything. Like, scary everything. So anyway, Alby’s a dryad, which is totally awesome, and Gally’s a wolf, and Jeff’s a wolf, and there’s actually a lot of wolves, you know? I’m a wolf, we’re pretty cool - Newt’s not, he’s a coyote, or a jackal or a dingo or something, no one really knows but we think coyote - as in, he’s not a wolf, not that he’s not cool, because he is - and there’s a mermaid somewhere but I can’t remember his name, and Clint’s this sort of lizard dragon thing which confuses everyone but his claws have this wicked painkiller medicine going on which is useful for a med-jack, I guess, and --”

Thomas nods at appropriate intervals and tries to commit the various names and were types to memory. He looks down at his hands, long fingered and mole-spotted, and tries to imagine them curled into claws.

“So what are you?” Chuck finishes with, gazing up a Thomas with an expectant air. Thomas almost snorts; with his wide eyes and his flyaway curls, he looks one notepad and pen set short of being an earnest reporter for the local school paper. Maybe in another life that’s what he was.

“I don’t think I’m anything,” he says, then tacks on a hasty “Sorry, Chuck,” though he’s not quite sure why.

“Nah, you’re something. We all are - it’s why they put us here. But it’s cool, apparently some of the guys don’t remember until their first full moon - I bet you were bitten, do you reckon you were bitten? Maybe it just happened, maybe that’s why you were able to forget. Oh, and I forgot, there’s Winston - don’t tell him I forgot him - he’s a vampire, he can walk upside down and everything, it’s awesome.”

Thomas nods and smiles and reties the knots on his hammock in a way that can’t be tugged or pulled loose (but will fall prey to a fistfull of claws which is why duct tape is your friend, _duct tape_ , stopping weres and solving crimes since forever and it’s totally legit let’s duct tape everything just in case why is no one else supporting this plan guys come on guys seriously) and adds Winston to his mental list.

iii.

“Chuck give you the run through?” Alby asks the next day. He runs his hands over the names carved into the wall. His fingers linger on the harsh lines crossing a few of them out.

“The run through?”

“Of us. The weres, the shifters, the spirits - all of us.”

Well. Yes, but Thomas kind of didn’t realise he’d be quizzed on it. He’d have made flash cards if he knew, he didn’t know much about himself, but he kind of felt he was a flash card kind of person.

Alby levelled him a look, flat and almost combative. “Any prejudices you have, any centuries old grudges between your kind and ours - forget them.” He made a chopping motion with his hand that had Thomas resisting the urge to take a step back. “They don’t mean anything. Gladers don’t hurt Gladers. Keep your instincts under control and don’t be an idiot.”

Thomas nodded shakily. At Alby’s expectant stare, he stammered out a shaky, “Yeah, gottit. No making crosses at the vampires, nossir.”

The pause dragged on. Thomas fought the urge to squirm. He didn’t think he had any instincts, or any inbuilt grudges against any of the Gladers. It wasn’t his fault that his first reaction to Chuck’s list had been a running mental commentary of weaknesses and ways to take everyone out. There was no way that Alby could know that. Anyway, it wasn’t like he’d use any of that knowledge. He didn’t even have half the materials and oh my god please stop now just in case Alby was a mind reader, Hi Alby, how’s things, ohgodstop.

“Good,” Alby pronounced. Thomas did not sag at the knees. The older teen nodded again, this time with a slow smile. “Good,” he repeated. “So, any questions?”

And, because Thomas was an idiot whose mouth ran faster than his brain: “I thought dryads were women?”

The dryad in question clapped him on the shoulder and almost sent him to the ground. “I’m an oak tree, Greenbean,” he laughed. “Trees don’t have genders.”

“Oh,” Thomas answered, and tried to shake the feeling back into his arm.


	2. Chapter 2

iv.

The first time he sees the maze, it calls to him. He can almost hear it whispering, feel it stretching out from him. It’s like another sense, another limb - it’s a heavy weight, dragging on him, cumbersome and unwieldy but something tells him that it could be so much more, that if only he understood it he could make it _dance_ for him --

The wolf he later learns is called Gally tackles him to the ground when he’s only a few paces from it. Chuck is hovering anxiously, the other Gladers are converging with their hands raised to keep him calm.

The maze shifts restlessly. Thomas feels it coiling beneath his skin. He demands to know what it is, tries to push past Gally because the maze, the maze is _just there_

All he earns for his troubles is a bruise to his chest where Gally flings out an arm to stop him, and three scratches across his biceps where Gally had gripped with his claws to emphasise the point. He learns that the maze is the maze, that the runners run the maze, and that no one else enters the maze.

He keeps quiet about the feel of it pulsing through his veins. It seems like the sensible option.

v.

“Still don’t know what you are?” Newt asks as the firelight dances across the blonde mess of his hair. He gestures at the barely healing scratches. “Chuck told me you weren’t sure. I think he was hoping you were another wolf, but clearly not.”

Thomas runs his fingers over the torn scraps of his shirt sleeve. His head is bowed so he doesn’t have to see Newt’s expression. He’s braced for disappointment and he’s not sure why, his jaw already set to defend his puny, fragile self. It has all the markings of an old hurt. He wonders what pack he used to run with, and what they thought of the way his wounds didn’t heal.

“Remind me to introduce you to Frypan,” Newt continues, casual and easy. “He’s your best bet at fixing the shirt for you.”

Thomas’ jaw relaxes, and his hand drops down to his knee. “Thanks,” he says. The coyote grins, rakish and laughing, and offers him a drink from his jar of amber liquid.

Thomas retracts his thanks shortly after that.

vi.

When Thomas sleeps, he dreams. There is blood and pain and the feel of claws against his bones. There is death and there are bodies and the smell of them almost drives him awake. There is fear and anger and shock and hatred, there is the need to avenge and the need to destroy and to hurt to hurt to _hurt_

Beneath it all there is the maze, shifting and changing and crawling with flares of energy that are hostile and wary (but that will not be enough because they have hurt him and so he will hurt them, he will make them bleed)

He hears someone screaming. A woman.

A friend.

He dreams.

vii.

When Ben attacks, he attacks with claws. His teeth crowd outwards, too many and too big for his mouth. His eyes are amber, pupils constricted to nothing. His hands grind Thomas’ wrist bones together until they almost snap, until they should have snapped, and there, score one for Thomas because if it wasn’t for the flare of heat in his veins Ben would have crushed his wrists to _dust_ and that is a big no, not happening.

Thomas kicks. Hard. He screams, limbs flailing wild and uncoordinated. He grips a branch and swings it; it shatters against Ben’s skull, but for just a moment, just a second, Ben is stunned. It’s all the time Thomas needs to scramble to his feet and run, and this, this is familiar with the blood pounding in his ears and the edges of his vision going grey as his entire focus is narrowed down to the way out of the forest.

He aims for Newt without realising it, some instinct driving him towards any semblance of pack that he has, and he’s pulling at that connection, flooding it to make it stronger than it has any right to be after just a day of knowing Newt. The impossibility of it doesn’t cross Thomas’ mind because now he has it and he’s tugging on it, yelling down it, screaming for the only pack he can find.

He goes down with the feeling of claws in his back and blood down his spine but Newt is there, one smooth leap of dirty blond fur with teeth. Newt goes for the throat. Thomas goes for the feet, tangles them up and pulls Ben’s balance out from underneath him, and together they bring the larger were down.

Later, Newt doesn’t yell at Thomas for putting himself in danger, for not running away before Ben could get close enough to attack. Thomas isn’t sure why he expects Newt would, only that he expects it. Newt stares at the blood on Thomas’ shirt and the twist to his lips is anything but pleased, but when Thomas raises his chin in challenge Newt shakes his head and laughs.

“Frypan,” he says, settling a hand over Thomas’ shoulder and guiding him over to one of the shorter Gladers. “Meet Thomas. Thomas, Frypan.” He turns Thomas round, a gentle push that (mostly) avoids agitating his injuries. “What can you do for that?” he asks. Frypan picks at the holes in Thomas’ shirt and mutters something about being a chef and not a tailor, but his protests are half-hearted at best.

And later still, when Thomas’ back is smeared with something that even he can tell smells just a little bit funky but which the med-jacks promise him will help, Alby explains the changing. He talks about the sting, as though the effect is the result of some kind of poison.

_Wolfsbane,_ Thomas thinks. The threads of black running up Ben’s chest from the wound, those were the sign of wolfsbane. And, _a lack of moonlight, that would turn him feral,_ and, _I think I found a way to weaponise that once,_ and, _it could be poisoned magic, like a nemeton with a thousand year old chaos spirit, that would make anyone unstable,_ and, _whatever that was, you realise that was deliberate, right?_ and, _I think I’ve seen it before I know I’ve seen it before_.

He says nothing about his churning thoughts. They walk Ben into the maze with sticks and Thomas almost protests because the changing can be reversed, because you can heal it, he knows this - but he doesn't know _how_ he knows and in the end, in the end he says nothing again. He traces Ben’s frantic, panicked movements through the night, feeling every step the were takes and every step the grievers take to hunt him down.

Ben dies two hours, fourteen minutes and thirty seven seconds after entering the maze. Thomas feels his life fade out and feels the maze resettle from the hunt back into patient watchfulness.

He closes his eyes and rolls over. When sleep comes, he dreams of a woman screaming and the smell of death.


	3. Chapter 3

viii.

Thomas isn’t much use at farming, truth be told. He’s not particularly strong. He’s not particularly weak, either, but when you’re surrounding by supernaturally enhanced weres and shifters that doesn’t mean much. His coordination leaves something to be desired, and wielding machetes that close to his fingers is just a recipe for disaster.

And he can’t concentrate. His mind jumps, flits around, he can’t get through a solid thought without something interrupting. It’s been getting worse. With headaches. Lovely, lovely headaches. He has to squash the urge to go back to Jeff and Clint and ask them for something, because he’s fairly certain these are not the sort of medicines commonly found in the glade. And, he’s pretty sure that if he goes back again then Clint will find an excuse to paralyse him from the neck down just to keep him out of trouble. Because Clint’s a pal like that. A true pal. That turns into a giant lizard with the tail of deathly poison which, if anyone asks Thomas, is a bit of overkill, you know? The numbing is good, pain killers are good, but Thomas kind of values the ability to move. It’s useful. He has a thing against scaly people who paralyse him, it’s in built, it’s a handy survival thing that he has.

He could join the cooking rota. He kind of thinks he likes cooking, and Frypan’s a dude, even if he’s a dude that favours far too much red meat and fat in his casseroles. Cholesterol levels, kid. Lean turkey mince and carrot sticks with low fat hummus. That’s where life’s at.

Except that Newt’s on farm duty. And Chuck’s on farm duty. And Alby swings by everyone in turn, so quite often Alby’s hanging around farm duty as well. Thomas doesn’t know how long it usually takes pack bonds to form and how strong they usually are, but he’s formed them. And overloaded them with… something. He’s not sure what. It feels sort of like whatever connects him to the maze, and then again _nothing at all_ like what connects him to the maze, Jesus, that’s some bad level shit right there and he’s not touching that, nossir, look how much he is not going anywhere near that.

Newt doesn’t mention the pack bond that Thomas supercharged into existence when he was running from Ben. He doesn’t behave any differently, Thomas thinks, except that Newt’s not annoyed by him, and Thomas gets the feeling that he’s an annoying person, that people are often annoyed by him, that if Newt slammed him into a wall (or a car or a tree or one time he thinks someone slammed into a waterfall and held him there) to shut him up, that would be normal. Not that he’s annoying all the time. But sometimes. With the suspicious squinting whenever Newt seems friendly, or the endless questions, or the way he really really struggles to keep his mind on topic for fucks sake. It’s embarrassing. And probably annoying.

Chuck, though, that’s more natural. Thomas wonders if he was ever an older brother, because sometimes it’s far too natural to keep an eye for Chuck. Glance over in the evening and check he’s got dinner and that it’s a good dinner. Casually lift the fire-water out of his hand and replace it with something a hell of a lot tamer. And the happy thoughts, the cheerful light hearted thoughts that crop up when Chuck smiles or laughs or is sad or sneezes, dammit, the thoughts that say that Thomas will murder the fuck out of anyone who ever hurts Chuck. Those thoughts.

Yeah, Thomas must’ve been an older brother before this. It’s the only explanation. It kind of makes him sad; he’s poked around in his head for any remnants of prior pack bonds, but he’s found… nothing. It’s like he never even had a pack before this.

“You gonna help at all?” Newt asks, waving a machete at him. Thomas slides down off the fence and gets to work, and Newt’s next to him and Chuck’s whittling sticks behind him, and he’s even got a faint thread reaching off to Alby somewhere in the glade so all is well with the world.

ix.

Until Alby doesn’t come back from the maze. Until Thomas feels something foreign in his maze, something deliberate acting outside the maze’ control. Until he feels the poison spreading through the bond he has to Alby and the ground falls out from under his feet because _he’s felt this before_.

He should have fought harder to get a look at Ben. He should have tried harder to work out what was going on but he didn’t, and now he’s going to lose a pack member before he’s even had chance to fully cement the bond.

He stands by the gates to the maze and fidgets. The maze is dangerous, he knows this in an abstract sense, but Alby’s in there. He doesn’t know exactly what kind of guy he was before he came here, but he figures it wasn’t a guy who would stand by when his pack was in trouble.

(When Ben was in trouble, maybe, but Ben was not pack and Thomas doesn’t want to look too closely at that in case it turns out he’s not a good person.)

“Can’t we send someone in there?” he asks again.

“It’s too dangerous,” comes the answer. Gally, leaning forwards and bracing his weight on his knee like it’s the only thing stopping him from wolfing out, growls out a terse, “It’s against the rules.”

Rules and danger are fucking bullshit, Thomas thinks savagely. He shifts forwards, straining his senses through the maze. They’re close, he can feel that they’re close, but he can’t quite tell where. If he could just get inside the maze --

Newt puts a hand on his arm. “We can’t risk anyone else,” he says with a grimace. Newt is Alby’s second in command. If anyone can make the call, Newt can because Alby is his pack too. Has been his pack for far longer than Thomas has.

Thomas waits. He hates it, but he waits.

Then Alby’s there, unconscious but there and Minho’s dragging him and they’re not going to make it but they’re so close - Gally yells at Minho to drop him, to drop Alby and for a second Thomas’ hand spasms and something dark inside him twitches - and Chuck is screaming encouragement and Newt says, low and stunned and broken, “They’re not going to make it.”

It’s a split second decision. Not even that. It’s not a decision. It’s just - Thomas runs. Newt swipes a hand behind him and those are claws, claws catching in the edge of Thomas’ shirt and trying to drag him back. Thomas twists his shirt out of Newt’s grip and hears the stitching tear. The walls are closing in and he scrabbles frantically, pulling himself along and pushing back against the pressure. The maze creaks and groans and fights him but he makes it, spilling out in an inelegant sprawl as the doors slam shut behind him.

There’s despair thrumming through his pack bond with Newt and denial down the bond with Chuck and the bond to Alby is dark and poisoned.

But Thomas is in the maze. It hums around him, alive and watchful and wary. Warmth blooms through him, from his heart to his arteries to every inch of his being. His lungs burn on every breath, and he can smell it, smell the mountain ash in every wall and the specks of black dust that swirl on the air currents and gather in the cracks and the corners.

“Congratulations,” Minho says, sitting back on his heels and letting his arms fall to his sides. “You’ve just killed yourself.”

No, Thomas thinks as the magic dances behind his eyelids. No, I don’t think I have.


	4. Chapter 4

x.

The maze fights him. It knows him and he knows it, it sends grievers after him and he can feel the skitter-scrape of their steps long before he hears them.

He’s a Spark in a maze full of mountain ash. The griever never stood a chance; it dies, and the maze’s last resistance falls. Thomas’ magic thrums through it and the maze is his.

He’s awake when the woman screams, and this time, Thomas screams back.

xi.

He’s still buzzing from the rush the next morning, drunk from the power flowing through him - through his maze. He’s healed his wounds. He’s reached through the fledgling pack-bond with Alby and frozen the wolfsbane, frozen the poisoned magic seeping through from the sting. He’s lighter, stronger, more alive than he’s ever been.

It’s intoxicating.

When Chuck runs towards him, Thomas reaches out and grabs him into a one armed hug. He buries his hand in riotous curls and laughs and his magic pours through the tentative bond between them until it flares into something strong and something brilliant and something _mine_. Chuck huffs a startled bark, stares up at Thomas with burning gold eyes that widen into something like wonder and something like hope.

They lay Alby down on the floor in the middle of the crowd. Minho is panting, his skin tinged an unhealthy grey and his shoulders sagging from exhaustion. He’s a were. A night in a mountain ash maze built specifically to contain his kind was never going to be easy for him. Thomas falters for a second because he hadn’t noticed, and that - Minho wasn’t pack, but that didn’t mean Thomas could ignore him. He wasn’t going to be that person, no matter who he had been before.

He rests a hand on Minho’s shoulder, a solid weight. We shared an experience. We survived certain death. We were a team, you and I. Minho holds his gaze for a long second, the leopard spots on his brow glistening with sweat. He nods, and Thomas’ hand slips away. When Minho faces the crowding Gladers again, his voice is strong and his hands are steady.

“Thomas didn’t just see a griever,” he tells the others. “He killed one.”

xii.

Chuck stays close, dogging Thomas’ steps and finding every excuse to touch. It’s a tug on his sleeve to get his attention, brushing against him as they walk, reaching for his hand to drag him forwards. Thomas lifts him up into a piggy back out of self defence more than anything else, the only way to make sure he doesn’t trip over the excitable wolf pup.

“I don’t remember my pack,” Chuck says. “I mean, I must’ve had one. But. I don’t remember them.”

Thomas jostles him, resettling the younger boy more comfortably on his back. “We’ll find them,” he promises. “You and I, we’ll track them down.”

“Yeah.” There’s a pause as Chuck leans forwards, resting his chin on Thomas’ shoulder and staring off into nothing. “I’m glad you came back.”

Thomas’ lips quirk up into a soft smile. He’s pretty sure that Chuck’s a born wolf. Ninety percent sure. Maybe eighty eight. But he’s so young, and so comfortable with what he is. No hesitations. No slip ups or lack of control. And, not that Thomas is proud of his new younger brother (except he totally is), but Chuck called the pack bond as soon as it anchored. Like, _instantaneously_. Straight away, happy days, pack is here, praise Jesus.

It’s amazing. It’s… He doesn’t know the word. Maybe if he had an internet he could google-fu the word. Not even the nagging question of who his pack were before, why he was expecting the bond to be so hard - not even that could put a damper on Thomas’ happiness. He has Chuck and Chuck has him and this is his family.

Newt’s been hanging back though. The blonde boy’s avoided Thomas since he came out of the maze. And Alby’s unconscious, held in stasis by Thomas’ magic to stop the changing spreading any further. (Which is weird in every way, because Thomas hadn’t quite cottoned on to the fact before that Alby is an _oak tree_ and his biology is slightly a lot actually way _way_ different to anything Thomas is used to, and he really really hopes that he’s not accidentally causing any permanent damage).

Thomas tightens his grip on Chuck’s legs. Gally’s called a meeting in the Homestead; talking to Newt will have to wait until after that, but Thomas won’t let it wait much longer.

xiii.

Gally says punish him. Minho says make him a runner. Chuck cheers in the audience, and Newt pays fair and equal attention to everyone’s point of view like a good little leader and never looks Thomas in the eye. The bond between them is quiet in a way that can only be deliberate and Thomas would like to know, please and kindly thank you, exactly _why_ Newt feels the need to shield himself away.

He doesn’t butt into the arguments. He doesn’t know that there’s anything he can say to defend himself. Gally’s already twitchy enough about the changes Thomas has brought, and he’s got more than a few in the audience on his side. Letting them know about Thomas’ connection to the maze would be… Unwise. Disastrous.

But come on Newt, he _saved Alby_. He killed a griever! He did the hero thing and he even brought everyone out alive, doesn’t that count for something? Newt. Newt. Look at me. Newt what the fuck, don’t pretend I’m not here, why won’t you just _look at me_.

“This shank?” Gally says, gesturing with a clawed hand. “He needs to be punished.” His eyes flash gold and his brow is heavy, too many teeth behind his barely contained growl. He’s jittery and his movements are quick and restless. The hand at his side is flexing and curling, claws pressing into the meat of his thumb and drawing blood. Thomas recognises the signs.

Gally’s afraid of him.

It startles Thomas into action and the words tumble out before he can stop them - “I’m not a threat, Gally.” His eyes flick to Newt, and he repeats himself, pleading, “I’m not.” Newt glances up. He makes eye contact for - what, a second? - then flicks his gaze back to Gally.

“Then what are you, Greenie?” Gally asks. “You’re not a were. You’re not affected by the maze - did you really think we wouldn’t notice? And from the day you arrive, things change. Ben died. Alby’s going to die.” He’s breathing heavily, shoulders heaving and his voice thick and guttural through the fangs. The crowd murmurs nervous agreement. “You’re not one of us, so what else does that leave?”

“He is one of us!” Chuck yells out. “He’s so totally one of us - I can prove it!” The diminutive werewolf is halfway over the back of the seat in front, pushing his way through the crowd. Newt makes an abortive movement to pull him back but Chuck twists away with a glare and a huffy growl.

“Chuck - ” Newt starts, but Gally cuts across.

“Prove it how?”

Chuck stands in front of Thomas like a pint sized attack dog. Thomas shifts awkwardly. He wants to see what Chuck’s proof is - and hey, someone standing up to Gally on his behalf, he’s all for that because it’s a novel change and Thomas does get so bored when things always stay the same - but Newt’s nerves are bleeding down the bond. Even without that, the blonde’s agitation is clear to see, and it’s making Thomas antsy.

“Chuck,” he says in a low voice (that most of the room can probably still hear because shit, weres and supersenses), “you don’t have to prove anything, kid.”

Chuck’s jaw is set. Stubborn. Well, that at least Thomas can approve of. “I don’t care,” he growls, and then his bond to Thomas flares up. Thomas doesn’t even think, just opens the floodgates and gives Chuck the power he asks for, and - holy shit. Holy mother of all shit _ever_.

Chuck’s lips pull back into a snarl, wicked fangs curving past his lower lips. His brow deepens, jagged strips of russet fur curving back over his forehead and down his cheeks. He hunches forward until clawed hands rest against the packed dirt, and the skin up his hands and arms darkens to a fur-spotted black.

“Dude,” Thomas says, raising an eyebrow at the mini murder machine that’s replaced his younger pack mate. “That is _awesome_.” From the stunned silence that’s fallen on the other boys, he rather thinks they agree. And it’s true, it is most supremely awesome, but… “How exactly does that prove your point?”

Gally throws his hands in the air. Even Newt breaks his ignoring-Thomas rule to raise an eyebrow and deliver a look that encapsulates _are you this stupid_ and _oh my god you actually are you idiotic wanker._ In a british accent. Newt’s eyebrows have a british accent, how is this even Thomas’ life?

Chuck’s the one to explain, because Chuck is sunshine and rainbows and not judgemental like that. “I’m a beta,” he rasps out. Stops, coughs, and lets his wolf fade back until he’s round faced and human again. “I could barely get my claws out as an omega, but with a pack - with you -” his face breaks into a wide, electric grin. “Did you see that? Did you - how cool was I?”

“Very cool,” Thomas assures him absently. His attention is on the crowd, the way they’re shifting and muttering. The wary glances they’re flicking at Chuck, the calculating looks a couple of them are flicking at _him_. He frowns, because there’s something he’s missing, something…

“Oh my god,” he breathes. “You’re all omegas.” An unnatural silence falls. They stare at him, all of them. Gally looks sick. Minho looks quietly satisfied, as though he’d won a private bet he’d made with himself, which, hey, Thomas isn’t going to argue with. As far as Thomas is concerned Minho is racking up mega points on the decent guy scale and is almost - _almost_ \- making up for the way he ran off and left Alby when the griever appeared.

Newt breaks the silence with a lazy, forced-casual shrug that grabs the attention of everyone in the room. “Packs need alphas,” he drawls. He tilts his head back and captures Thomas in a heavy-lidded stare. His eyes drag down and up, slivers of electric blue that leave Thomas’ mouth dry and his heart stuttering out of rhythm. “We’ve never had one before.”

_Guh._

What the fuck do you say to that? Was that flirting? Thomas thinks that was flirting. Actually, Thomas thinks was blatant and all out fuck-me-now and he’s a) all up for this, because hello, Newt’s hot and Thomas is all for the sex many times the sex oh god, but b) kind of confused because he’s pretty sure Newt was trying to pretend he didn’t exist, and also a little bit of c) struggling to put his thoughts together because the eyes and the british and the collar bones, he could lick those collar bones and _holy_ fucking _god_ now Newt’s smirking, he’s actual, honest to god smirking and Thomas just. He. _Guh._

The klaxon’s timing is spectacular. Spectacularly good or spectacularly bad, Thomas will get back to you on that.


	5. Chapter 5

xiv.

There’s a woman in the cage. The box. Whatever they call it. There’s a woman in it.

She’s short. Pale, deathly pale. Red hair. Pretty. She’s wearing a baggy jumper with a batman symbol on it and a pair of skinny jeans. Her feet are bare, but the toes are painted scarlet. The clothes don’t suit her. High heels and flouncy dresses, her hair in perfect curls - _that_ would suit her, and Thomas doesn’t know why he’s so sure about this, but he is.

She heaves in a breath like she’s fighting for it, and she looks straight at Thomas as though she knew where he’d be.

She says, “Stiles.”

xv.

He puts her out of his mind. She’s nothing to do with him, just another kid sent up to the glade. Who cares if it was unusual? Who cares if she’s the first girl they’ve had, who gives a flying fuck about anything to do with her?

Thomas doesn’t. He _doesn’t_.

He cares about the griever rotting in the maze and the secrets it holds. He cares about getting out. He feels constricted, hemmed in by the walls of the maze - his maze, his fucking maze and if it’s so saturated with his magic why can’t he get out? Why can’t he just blast his way through, force it open, why can’t he get the fuck out of here?

He can’t focus. He needs to focus. There’s something he’s missing, something important and he just needs to sit down and think. He needs everyone to stop fucking looking at him like that, he needs his thoughts to shut up and stop distracting him.

He’s pacing so fast he almost gives himself whiplash when he turns. His fingers tug at the hem of his shirt and his pulse is rabbiting in his neck.

He needs to calm down. He wants Alby, wants the dryad’s endless patience, but Alby’s _sick_ and Thomas’ magic is sparking and fighting his control and Thomas doesn’t know how much longer he can keep Alby grounded. He’s started fitting on the hospital bed. Clint gave him a swipe of paralysing poison, but Alby’s still shaking. He’s going to get worse and there’s nothing Thomas can do and if he wasn’t trapped then maybe maybe maybe

But that’s no help because he needs to fucking _focus._ He turns back to head for Newt because he’s hyperventilating and he can’t stop and he needs his pack, but that’s a bad plan, that’s a really messed up bad plan because what the hell is even up with Newt and just at the moment Thomas can’t deal.

He takes a breath, as deep as he can. Tries to count it down. A shadow of a memory flicks through, someone staying with him, counting his breaths for him when he can’t hold onto the numbers. But they’re not here. They’re out there and Thomas is in here and he’s trapped.

He can’t get out. His magic thrashes against the maze and it’s his maze so why doesn’t it listen to him why isn’t it moving and why isn’t it opening and he can’t get out he can’t breath there’s a ringing in his ears he can’t breath there are black spots dancing across the edges of his vision and he can’t get out the girl called him Stiles but that’s not his name it’s not it’s not it’s not

“Thomas?”

Thomas spins, grips their shoulders hard enough to bruise. “I need to get back into the maze,” he gasps, and that’s - that’s clarity. That’s calm. “I need to get back into the maze,” he repeats, slower, his vision clearing and his breathing stabilising.

Minho shrugs his hands off. “Have you got a death wish?” he hisses. “You only just got out of the maze, now you want to go back in?”

Thomas shakes his head. “I want to get out - for good. Think about it, Minho! No one’s ever seen a griever and now we have one. Ours, just lying there. Aren’t you even a little curious?” He’s grinning, hands flying wildly to illustrate his point. The griever is their ticket out, the bit he’s been missing. Minho is stepping back, folding his arms, but Thomas has him, he knows it. They’re going back in the maze.

xvi.

Is Minho pack now? Minho kinda seems like he should be pack now. He stuck his arm into griever-goop to get Thomas a shiny beeping magic thing. He’s definitely pack now.

xvii.

“It’s a key,” Thomas explains as Newt turns the cylinder over in his hands. The other boy is back to being cool and almost distant with Thomas, but then again, their hands maybe brushed a tiny bit when Thomas was handing the cylinder over and Thomas is maybe a little bit highly strung around Newt at the moment. For obvious reasons.

He pushes it down and drags his mind back to the matter at hand. “I don’t know what for exactly, not yet, but it interacts with the maze.”

Newt runs his thumb over the letters down the side and Thomas’ heart skips a beat. Fuck’s sake, he’s in a room full of weres with heart-beat-detecting hearing. He needs to get a fucking grip.

“How?”

“I don’t remember the mechanics -” no, wait. That’s not true. Thomas tilts his head to the side, waiting for the information that was hovering on the edge of his mind. Sometimes, sometimes you just have to be cunning with these things. “The maze… It’s too big. Something that complicated, you can’t change part of it. The whole thing collapses if you try.” He nods to himself, more confident in what he’s saying. It makes sense. Sky is blue, things that go up must come down, and, “When a seal is too complex to rewrite on the fly, you write the original seal to cover all possibilities and use separate commands to flip between the options. It’s a matrix transformation; same data always encoded in the matrix, but different outputs depending on the transformation you’ve applied.”

Yes, that’s it - he reaches for the cylinder. Newt hands it over with a bemused expression that Thomas fails to notice. He digs his fingers into the casing, sending out an exploratory flare of magic to get a reading and - called it. He bares his teeth in a vicious smile. “It _is_ a runic matrix, I knew it. This is how they control the maze, don’t you see? Load the right runes onto the grievers and send them to the right place - it’s programming, programming with magic, oh my god I’m in heaven, I didn’t even know this was possible on this scale - do you even understand what this means?”

“No?” Minho hazards. He doesn’t seem to grasp the enormity of Thomas’ discovery. Thomas waves the life changing magic cylinder at him to help him see.

“Wards! Dynamic wards - you could key them to people, or activate different wards at different times, you could set traps with these anywhere and no one could sense them because there wouldn’t _be_ anything to sense, not until you activated the wards do you see? And spells, god could you imagine a multi layered spell with a hidden second phase? Mayhem! Chaos! Minho this is beautiful!”

Newt grabs a flailing hand and drags Thomas back a step. “Does it help us break the maze?” he demands. Thomas whirls on him, because this is so much bigger than the maze, it’s - Newt’s serious face stops him in his tracks. He plays the conversation back through his head until he’s back with the program again.

“Yes,” he manages in a calmer voice. “The grievers use it to move around in the maze. If we can get back in the maze, if we can work out how to apply it, we can use it for the same thing.” Newt frowns at him, working through what he’s said, and Thomas lifts his chin. He’s sure about this.

Newt’s still holding his wrist. Just, just by the by.

“Ok.” Newt nods and takes a step back. His fingers drag up the inside of Thomas’ arm when he lets go and there’s fire trailing in their wake. Thomas swallows and tries to pretend that he’s not affected. He pokes at Newt’s pack bond again but it’s still - _he’s_ still - frustratingly silent.

“Ok,” Newt repeats. “I’m not going to say I understood most of that, but I got the gist.”

“How the hell do you even know that stuff?” Minho asks, and Thomas absolutely did not jump, because he hadn’t forgotten that Minho was there. It’s not like his whole attention had been on Newt or anything. No.

Gally snorts (and Thomas hadn’t forgotten he was there either, he’s doing well with that today, and yes, sarcasm is a way of life and lying to himself is a human right that he will not be denied). “Didn’t you get the memo? All powerful alpha Thomas has strange and mysterious powers that are beyond us mere mortals.”

Alpha? The fuck?

“Gally,” Newt starts, but the other boy cuts across him.

“Oh come on, Newt, you can’t be serious! First he breaks our rules, then he tries to get them thrown out completely. You see what he’s doing, don’t you?” He jabs a hand at Thomas to illustrate his point and his lips twist into a sneer. “We’ve spent three years building up this glade, making it equal and ordered and making it work. He spends three days here and he’s trying to control everything because he’s an alpha and that’s what alphas _do_.”

“I’m not trying to control anything!” Thomas protests. “This isn’t a fucking coup, Gally - I’m getting us out of the maze, that’s it. That’s all of it!”

“Yeah?” Gally bares his teeth. “Then prove it, shank! If you were any other glader you’d be punished for breaking the rules. You going to submit to that?”

“Yes!”

There’s a stunned silence. Thomas runs a hand through his hair and tries to get his breathing under control. “I’m not your enemy,” he says finally. “I want to get out - but I want everyone to get out. I’m not leaving you behind.” He lets his hand drop and shrugs. “Alby left Newt in charge. If Newt says punishment, I’m not going to fight it.”

“But Newt’s an omega,” Gally says.

“I know.” Actually, he’s fairly certain that Newt’s a beta now, but best not quibble.

“And you’re an alpha.”

“Doesn’t matter.” And he’s still dubious about the whole alpha schtick. He doesn’t feel like much of an alpha, he’s just… Just Thomas. He wanted a pack, that’s all.

Gally stares. “What the hell shank, you’re not even lying.”

Thomas shrugs again. There’s not much else he can say to that. “Newt?” he asks, keeping his gaze trained on the scuffed footprints on the floor. Newt’s going to give a punishment. He kind of has to, at this point. And Thomas has to obey it or let Gally turn him into a liar. Which he isn’t.

He hopes Newt doesn’t banish him. Or ban him from the maze. He’s so close, so close to getting them all out of here. And… he doesn’t know where he stands with Newt at the moment. This whole ignoring you - oh wait no, here’s some eye fucking - no, back to ignoring you thing, it’s confusing.

“Thomas broke the rules,” Newt finally announces. “He needs to be punished.” Thomas braces himself, shoulders tense. “One night in the pit, no food.”

He’s stunned. He barely hears Gally’s angry protests, barely even registers Newt promoting him to runner status. He nods and tries not to grin (he doubts it would go down well). Newt’s supporting him. Newt wants him to go back, is helping him find a way to fix this stupid mess and get them out. It doesn’t explain the whole ignoring thing, but - it’s a start.

He waits for the others to file out (or angrily stomp out in Gally’s case) until it’s just him and Newt left in the hut. And then, then, see, he has a plan. A well thought out plan where he’ll calmly ask Newt to explain, and Newt will say something that makes sense and then they’ll laugh and hug it out and maybe if Thomas is lucky the hug will go in an interesting direction. The important thing is that he starts out calm.

He toes the door to a closed position and takes a deep breath. Turns to face Newt. Remembers his calm. He is all of the calm. His chi is in balance.

Newt’s got one eyebrow raised. He’s leaning back against the wall with his head tipped back and his eyes half lidded and his crossed arms pulling his shirt low at the collar. The left side of his lips twitch up into a smirk.

_Guh._

“You going to try and talk me out of it?” Newt asks, and holy whores in a crack house it should be illegal for a voice to be that sexy. It’s low and there’s a hint of roughness at the edges and with Newt’s accent it just rolls off his tongue like caramel syrup oh my god.

“What?” Thomas manages to croak.

The half smirk evolves into a full smirk. Newt pushes off the wall in one smooth movement. His shoulders ripple beneath his shirt and there’s a bead of sweat running down his throat to pool in the hollow of his collar bones. It’s hypnotising. Thomas can’t look away from that bead of sweat. A griever could break through the roof and Thomas would be dead because of that bead of sweat. Newt’s neck is literally killing him.

“Weren’t you listening?” Newt purrs. He’s walking towards Thomas - _stalking_ towards him, hips moving with each step and if he had a tail he’d be lashing it behind him - and Thomas backs away on instinct. His back hits the wall. His magic hovers awkwardly, one step from melting through the wall to let him keep moving away, but then Newt is there, bracketing Thomas with his arms and his thigh one long line of heat against Thomas and Thomas just stares, his mouth is hanging open, holy crap he thinks he’s forgotten how his knees work if Newt wasn’t holding him up he’d be a puddle on the floor and just. Just.

The bond is carefully, achingly, silent.

“Your punishment,” Newt says, his lips brushing Thomas’ ear. “Shall I retract it, Alpha mine?”

The bond is silent and Newt’s head is bowed, blond hair falling over his face and hiding his eyes. Thomas swallows, something bitter rising in his throat. He raises his hands to push against the other boy’s chest, but Newt takes the opportunity to dip his head. He licks one long, wet stripe up Thomas’ neck and Thomas’ knees follow up on their threat to give out beneath him.

“Newt,” he gasps out, fingers clutching against his shoulders. The rough wall digs into his back and Newt’s hip is bony against his own and between them, they’re all that keeps him upright. Newt presses a grin against his throat and an ugly satisfaction bleeds down the link between them.

“Is that a yes, Alpha?”

Thomas grits his teeth. “No,” he manages. Newt hesitates against him. “No,” Thomas repeats, stronger. He forces his legs to cooperate and slides out sideways from underneath Newt, turning until they’re facing each other. Newt turns with him, leaning one shoulder against the wall and crossing his ankles in a facsimile of calm.

“No,” he says, too flat to be a question.

Thomas crosses his arms defensively and hunches in. He wants to reach for the bond again, hell, he wants to reach for Chuck just for the security that his pack would give him, but he doesn’t. Keeps all limbs and thoughts and magic carefully inside his own space. “I said I’d serve whatever punishment you decided, so I will. I’m not going to change my mind.”

“Even though you’re an alpha?”

His lips pull down into a sour frown. “I’m not -” he starts, but Newt cuts across him.

“You are.” Newt runs a clawed hand through his hair, gripping and tugging on the blond strands. He shifts restlessly, his gaze jerking away from Thomas and back as though he can’t decide where to look. “You’re an alpha, you’ve made yourself _my_ alpha. Alphas don’t follow orders from betas.”

“Alby left you in charge,” Thomas protests. He feels sick, and he doesn’t want to understand why. “You know the glade - the Gladers - better than I do, it’d be stupid for me to take charge.”

“Alphas always take charge,” Newt scoffs. Thomas shrinks in on himself further. How are they having this argument? How did they go from - from - to this? “Alphas take anything they want, it’s not like they need to ask.”

He feels like he’s been plunged into ice. His voice comes as though from far away and sounds odd in his ears. “Anything. Like. Like you.”

Newt snorts, sharp and hurtful. “It’s not like you hid it,” and the words cut into Thomas like talons. “You didn’t give me a choice before, why should I expect one with this?”

Oh. Oh god. Because, because Thomas had been running and had been scared and Ben had been too close behind him, and he’d reached for Newt in a panic and the bond had flared to life. Because Thomas had wanted it to. Because he’d needed something that Newt had, needed Newt as his pack.

He has a feeling that he’d come across an alpha before that had made a pack without asking.

He has a feeling that he’d set the fucker on fire for doing it.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks out. “I didn’t -” he doesn’t finish that sentence. It would probably be a lie anyway. He feels for the bond inside his head, feels how deeply it’s rooted itself, and grimaces. He can break it. He thinks. It will - it won’t be pleasant, but if he breaks it his end, then he should be able to stop any of the backlash reaching Newt.

Shit, this is going to hurt.

He takes a breath and screws his eyes shut, his magic coiling around and dampening the bond in preparation -

Newt slams his hand away, grip hard enough to grind his wrist bones together as he pins it to the wall. “What the fuck are you doing?” the coyote snarls, eyes glowing an electric blue.

“Fixing it,” Thomas spits back. Newt snarls again, pressing closer, claws digging into Thomas’ shoulder. The bond flares between them, a maelstrom of anger and shock and _why why why why_ and something that might almost be hope. “You don’t want it,” Thomas says, but it comes out almost like a question. “So…” he licks his lips, searching for the words, and Newt’s gaze hones in like a fucking homing beacon. Thomas’ throat goes dry. “So no pack?”

“Yes pack,” Newt growls, and his eyebrows add, _you bloody idiot_ , but there’s something almost fond in their cultured british accent.

“Oh,” Thomas manages, and Newt kisses him.

_Guh._


	6. Chapter 6

xviii.

Later, Thomas asks, “What kind of alpha did you have before?”

Newt shrugs. “Can’t remember,” he says lightly, but there’s something uneasy in his tone. Thomas frowns in concern - and maybe the tiniest fraction of murderous intent. Newt’s not that common a name; give him an internet and he’s sure he could track the alpha bastard down. He knows about multi layered spells now, he needs an excuse to test them.

Newt rolls his eyes. “Wanker,” he says with a shove, but the bond between them is open and fond.

xix.

Thomas doesn’t sleep in the pit. Newt churns somewhere in the back of his mind and Chuck is a comforting warmth, Alby shivers and twitches and there’s something about him that’s not reacting how Thomas thinks a dryad should but Minho’s fledgling presence is calm and cautiously optimistic.

The maze coils around him, sleepy and lazy and obedient. There are no grievers out tonight. The foreign magic slides effortlessly off the edge of the maze; it’s Thomas’ now, and he doesn’t share.

(It always was Thomas’)

He’s missing something. He turns it over in his mind and stretches the seal work out, but he can’t tell what it was originally supposed to be. Ben and his changing runs through his memories, the black veins of wolfsbane poison threading out from the wound, the madness, the certainty that he’d come across it before.

Alby’s an oak tree. He was the first one in the maze.

An oak tree.

Alby’s in the grip of wolfsbane poisoning. The change spreads through him slowly, draining him. Draining the magic Thomas feeds into him to keep him alive.

Alby’s an oak tree trapped in a spiralling maze that Thomas built.

Thomas huffs in frustration and starts again. He’s missing something, but he doesn’t know what.

xx.

Thomas is with Newt when he hears the scream. He’s still cautious around the coyote, still unsure where they stand after their confrontation - but Newt seems happy enough and their bond stays open. The weirdly intense seduction has gone but the fleeting touches haven’t, and Newt leaves fire trailing across Thomas’ skin with each one. And, from the quirk of amusement in Newt’s smile, the bastard knows it.

But the scream pushes Newt from his mind - pushes everything out. He moves on instinct, running with magic in his legs and fire gathering at his fingertips. She’s standing against the base of one of the towers, loosely surrounded by a handful of weres - at least one kanima, and fuck, the vampire’s already dead, he’s immune to anything a banshee can do - Stiles swipes a dagaz rune across his palm and readies it for use as a flash-bomb - he’s crouched in front of her, mountain ash hanging in a protective circle around them - the werejaguar takes a step forwards, his face twisted against the pain of Lydia’s scream, and Stiles sends fire out like a whip to keep him back - he almost stumbles as he realises where they are, they’re inside his wards, how the fuck did this many weres get through his wards? - the mountain ash writhes as he prepares to strike, while they’re still incapacitated from Lydia’s scream, the dagaz rune burns hot against his palm and if that vampire so much as fucking moves -

“Tommy!”

Thomas stutters, dropping to his knees. The rune destabilises in his hand and he presses it against his chest to shield it. It shreds his skin bloody and he gasps around the pain, but fuck, would Winston have survived if he’d let it out?

There’s a strange ringing in his ears, a high counterpoint to the throbbing in his head. His pack bonds are fraught with panic and fear, Chuck’s flaring like a fucking firecracker behind his eyes, but Thomas can barely pull himself together enough to soothe him. “‘m alright,” he mumbles into the grass. It might, potentially, be a lie.

“Stiles,” the girl whispers, and her hands are cool against his forehead. She might, honest to god, be an actual real life angel.

“What the fuck did you do to him?” Newt snarls. The girl stands up and her hands fall away from his head. He whimpers. Chuck vibrates with horror. Thomas’ pack are being threatened by something, he should. Should help. Or something. Yeah.

“I didn’t do anything,” the girl says, each word enunciated with cutting crispness. _Liar,_ Thomas thinks fondly, followed by, _Oh._ They think she’s the threat. The fuck. She’s not a threat.

No, that’s not right. She’s a big threat, the biggest, like, set the world on fire kind of threat, but not to them.

Right?

“Guys,” Thomas pleads. “No fighting.”

“You started it,” Minho says with amusement, because Minho is exactly the sort of shaudenfreudistic bastard that would find this funny. Thomas peels his eyes open to better glare at him, and pauses when he sees the circle of mountain ash twisting sluggishly through the grass.

“Yours?” he asks the girl with a frown.

“No,” she says, flat and dismissive and calculating and calmly collected.

“Fuck,” Thomas says with feeling.

xxi.

Thomas’ headache doesn’t go away. The girl gives him double vision. He looks at her and sees a pale, washed out scrap, messy hair, baggy clothes, mud stains on her bare feet. He looks at her and sees the way her shoulders are loose, her chin is tilted up, her hands hang still at her side.

But then again, he sees her in high heels, in leather jackets, in floral skirts and bright red lipstick. He sees her twirl the detonator between her fingers and press the button; he sees her eyes narrow down the barrel of a gun before she fires; he sees her balance on one foot like a dancer and crush a man’s windpipe with the other.

She shoots him a grin, a secret shared between the two of them, and he flinches away.

xxii.

“Your name is Stiles Stilinski,” she says conversationally, like they’re getting coffee and the other Gladers are just nosy bystanders in the shop.

“His name is Thomas,” Chuck corrects, glaring up at her from his place at Thomas’ side. She ignores him. Doesn’t show any sign she's heard him, doesn't even glance his way.

“You’re a Spark. You were born here in Beacon Hills. Your alpha is a werewolf called Scott McCall, your blood sister is a hunter called Alison Argent, and your best friend,” the slightest gesture to herself, “is a banshee called Lydia Martin.”

“He can’t have an alpha,” Gally sneers. “He _is_ an alpha. Sorry, sweet cheeks, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

She ignores him too. Her steady gaze doesn't so much as waver from Thomas. It’s making him feel sick. It’s making him feel like he’s spiralling out of control, because she kills people - don’t ask him how he knows it but he does. And he… He doesn’t want to be the kind of person that would consider her to be their best friend.

She keeps talking.

“You designed the wards to protect and contain the Nemeton. A month ago, you registered intruders in the wards. We came to investigate. Scott was poisoned.”

She pauses as though waiting for a reaction, but Thomas has nothing. He should, he thinks, and he remembers how he felt when he recognised the changing in Ben, but… He doesn’t know who Scott is. After a beat, she continues.

“You said you were going to deal with it. You said you’d be back when the wards were fixed. You took too long, so here I am.”

There’s silence when she’s done, the reeling, horrified kind of silence that hangs heavy and choking in your throat and paralyses you.

“Tommy?” Newt asks quietly, and Thomas grasps at the lifeline he provides. “Is she telling the truth?”

“I don’t know,” Thomas mumbles.

“Figure it out,” she commands. Then, softer, but no less cold and merciless, “People are dying, Stiles. We need you.”


	7. Chapter 7

xxiii.

Newt corners him. He’s nervous, but his stance is sure. This is Newt, Alby’s second in command, the one responsible for all the lives currently in the glade.

“Talk to me, Tommy,” he pleads, voice pitched low.

Thomas slumps to the ground, hugging his knees to his chest. “I think she’s right,” he tells the ground in front of Newt’s feet. The words feel like they’re being ripped out of him.

“Ok,” Newt says. Then, again, slower. “Ok.” He sinks down to sit on a tree stump. Thomas keeps his eyes firmly on the leaf litter and dead soil. Newt’s voice is carefully neutral when he continues: “You built the maze.”

He shrinks in on himself, but nods. “It feels familiar,” he offers. “But I don’t - I mean, I didn’t have anything to do with us being here. That’s not - I built it, but not, not for - I can’t have built it for this.”

“No,” Newt says finally. “But when you learnt about us, you came to... ‘deal with us’, she said.”

There’s no judgement in his tone. There’s not much of anything. Thomas wants to reach for the bond, but he doesn’t feel he’s earned that right.

“I’m pretty sure I came to kill you all,” he rasps. Swallows, but his throat is still dry. “I don't think I’m what you would call a good person.”

“Tommy,” Newt growls, and there’s anger there, a helpless rage wrapped in a command. Thomas looks up and Newt moves forwards to capture his lips in a bruising kiss. He pushes Thomas back against the tree behind him, one hand braced against the bark to support his weight and the other fisted in Thomas’ mud-stained shirt. Thomas moans, his legs falling open to cradle Newt’s hips and his hands coming up to tangle in messy blond hair. It makes Newt press closer, reaching back to pull Thomas’ leg up to rest over his waist. Their cocks press together through their trousers and Thomas gasps, his head falling back with a heavy thud against the tree.

“You are Tommy,” Newt breathes, punctuating the last word with a harsh nip to Thomas’ jaw line. “You are my alpha.” He pulls back and Thomas all but whimpers at the loss, his hands dropping to Newt’s waist and tugging ineffectively to bring him back. Newt grips his chin and holds his gaze steady. “Whoever you were before this doesn’t matter. What matters is who you are now. Stiles is gone - you are Tommy.”

Thomas laughs shakily. “Still some Stiles,” he says. “Still forced a pack bond on you without asking. That’s not - wasn’t ideal.”

Newt’s eyebrow goes up. It’s like Thomas’ own personal expression, the exasperation and the disbelief that only he and his idiocy can inspire. “You were about to gut yourself when you thought I didn’t want it, you daft git,” he retorts. “Sounds like Tommy to me.”

“Yeah,” Thomas winces. “Daft git, sounds like me.” His mind leaps on Newt’s words and runs with them. He waits, patiently - he’s got a better grasp on his brain now. It goes in seven directions and he can usually ignore most of the distracting burble, but sometimes it actually makes useful connections.

Like the fact that Lydia said Stiles was in a pack.

Like the fact that Stiles’ alpha had been poisoned.

Like the fact that if Stiles was anything like Thomas, anything at all, he would never leave his alpha if his alpha was dying.

Like the fact that if Stiles’ alpha had died, it would leave a broken bond - a scar on his soul that would take years to heal. Newt wasn’t wrong when he likened breaking a bond to being gutted. Like a fish hung up to dry. Heh. Newts and fishes, look at him being all aquatic. Focus, Tommy-boy.

Thomas doesn’t have scars. Thomas woke up with carefully no sign of his pack bonds at all, as if they’d never existed - as if they’d been hidden.

If Stiles’ alpha had died, Stiles couldn’t have hidden the scar. Therefore, Stiles’ alpha survived being poisoned.

If Stiles’ alpha could survive being poisoned…

Thomas inhales like he’s been sucker punched. “He can cure Alby,” he says, dazed.

Newt’s hands tighten on his shoulders. “Who?”

“Stiles. Stiles can cure Alby.”

xxiv.

“Can I help you?” Lydia asks, flashing them a blank smile. Thomas fights the sudden feeling of wrongness because that smile, that’s the smile for enemies and idiots, it shouldn’t be aimed at him.

It shouldn’t be aimed at Stiles, he corrects himself, but Thomas isn’t Stiles. He hangs back, unsure how to react to her.

“What do you want?” Newt asks, speaking slowly as though keeping the snarl he’d rather use at bay.

She blinks at him guilelessly. “World peace. The Fielder’s prize. A dozen corgi puppies.”

Newt does snarl at her then, and she laughs. It’s perfect, but cold. Fake, Thomas identifies. “In the short term? I want Stiles back. Preferably with his memories intact.”

Newt glances back at Thomas, but Thomas doesn’t have an answer for that one. He moves past it to the other important point: “You said people were dying.” The other important point, the one that said that  _Alby_ was dying and Stiles could save him, that he keeps to himself. He couldn't say why, except that Lydia doesn't know about Alby, not yet, and that feels like the safest way to keep it.

“People are always dying.” Lydia shrugs, unconcerned, and something in Thomas revolts. He wasn’t blind; he knew he was many things, not all of them kind - but apathetic dismissal, no. That wasn’t him. Surely that wasn’t him?

“Specifically in this case, all supernatural beings within approximately an eighty mile radius are dying,” she continues. It’s almost clinical, her description. “The Nemeton is compromised. Take down the magical core and the rest of us disintegrate. You’re safe here for now, but eventually the last of the Nemeton will fall. None of you will survive after that.”

“Disintegrate?” Thomas manages around the bile that’s risen in his throat.

“The hell is a Nemeton?” Newt asks. She ignores him, her body turned so she’s almost exclusively talking to Thomas - to Stiles, as she thinks of him - and Thomas bristles. He tries to hide it, because for now they need information more than they need a fight, but from the amused tilt to her head he’s not successful.

“Well?” he asks, more aggressively than he meant to.

She purses her lips, and chooses to answer his question and not Newt’s. “Disintegrate. Rot, in some cases. But yes, most of us will disintegrate - without Nemetons to control it, magic burns the water in our cells and dries us out from the inside. The bones last longer than the rest.”

They don’t ask how she knows. By the quirk of her smile, she takes it as a victory.

Thomas takes a breath and recenters himself, but it’s Newt who asks, “Can you fix it without Stiles?” His voice is carefully steady, but Thomas knows him well enough now to pick up the trepidation behind it. It doesn’t take a genius to see that Newt doesn’t expect Stiles to tolerate him - or Chuck - in his pack, doesn’t expect Thomas to survive if Stiles comes back. Thomas sends a wave of reassurance down the bond, but the terrifying thing is that he doesn’t know if Newt is right to be afraid or not.

“Probably,” Lydia says. “But it won’t be necessary.” She turns away, like Newt is beneath her, like it’s a foregone conclusion that she’s won before she started playing.

Newt glares at her for it, angry and helpless and hating it, and Thomas opens his mouth to protest but the words stick in his throat. What can he say? If she’s right, what choice does he have?

Wait for a slow disintegration as the Nemeton fades and his pack dies around him, or the sudden pain of losing his pack and himself in exchange for Stiles.

Thomas is fucked either way.

xxv.

“You can’t go,” Chuck pleads. Minho is a silent presence in the background, but what he doesn’t say in words he says in actions, reaching out and affirming the pack bond that Thomas has (very carefully) not forced on him. It flares to life between them, an anchor keeping Thomas in place.

“It’s Alby,” Thomas protests. “Alby and who knows how many other people." Eighty miles - god. That's a lot of weres depending on Stiles to save them. "And I won’t be gone. I’ll still be me, just me with memories.”

Newt looms in the corner. He’s been strangely subdued, his bond quiet and and conflicted. Thomas reaches out, but the coyote rebuffs him.

“Don’t be stupid,” is all he says, and runs a hand along the back of Thomas’ neck as he leaves. Then, a throwaway thought that Thomas isn’t sure he’s supposed to catch, _Don’t leave without saying goodbye._

He glances down at Alby’s shivering form and hesitates. He’s feeding enough magic into the older boy now that by all rights, the dryad should have burnt to a crisp from the force of it. The poison drains it almost as fast as Thomas can produce it. Almost. They’ve a day or so left, Thomas estimates.

The thought of saying goodbye to Newt - to Chuck, to Minho, to any of them - sits in his chest like a physical pain. He can keep Alby going for another day yet.


End file.
